China retaliates after EU sanctions its banks for aiding Russia

[oil&gas]

Jul 21, 2025

China has issued a stern warning to the European Union, promising retaliation after Brussels sanctioned two Chinese banks and five companies for allegedly helping Russia circumvent Ukraine war-related sanctions. The European Union’s new sanctions package, announced last Friday, included Heihe Rural Commercial Bank and Heilongjiang Suifenhe Rural Commercial Bank, both accused of providing cryptocurrency services that undermined EU restrictions on Moscow.

The move marks the first time Chinese banks have been added to the EU sanctions list since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, intensifying tensions between the bloc and Beijing. According to Bloomberg, the banks were included for processing crypto-based transactions and for providing financial support to Russian entities already under EU sanctions.

China’s Ministry of Commerce responded on Monday, condemning the EU sanctions as actions that “seriously harmed trade, economic and financial ties.” The ministry said it would take “necessary steps” to protect the “legitimate rights and interests” of Chinese firms.

The sanctioned banks could not be immediately reached for comment, Reuters reported.

In June, ahead of the sanctions, China had already protested the EU’s plan. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian had said that “normal exchanges and cooperation between Chinese and Russian companies are consistent with WTO rules” and “should not be disrupted or affected.”

Beijing also stepped up diplomatic efforts behind the scenes. As per the South China Morning Post, China’s ambassador to the EU lobbied European officials to drop the proposal. But Brussels went ahead, escalating the fallout.

China caught in crossfire of Russia sanctions
From energy to banking, China’s close ties with Russia have come under increasing scrutiny from both the EU and the United States. This is not the first time Chinese banks have been impacted. In 2023, the US authorised secondary sanctions on foreign financial institutions that assist Russia, prompting several Chinese lenders to scale back ties.

According to Bloomberg, state-owned giants like ICBC and Bank of China had already begun restricting financing for Russian commodities as early as 2022, wary of losing access to the US dollar clearing system. The EU’s latest action builds on growing concerns that crypto tools and opaque financial channels are being used to bypass Western sanctions, with Chinese entities playing a key role.

What happens next?
Attention will now turn to how China retaliates. Foreign Minister Wang Yi had earlier warned of consequences if Chinese banks were sanctioned. Beijing could target European firms operating in China or implement countermeasures via its cybersecurity and export control laws, experts suggest.

The escalating row comes at a time when China–EU ties are already strained, over issues ranging from electric vehicle tariffs to tech transfer rules. As geopolitical fault lines deepen, Brussels appears ready to hold Beijing accountable for any role in supporting Moscow’s war machine, directly or indirectly.

China retaliates after EU sanctions its banks for aiding Russia

Tensions are escalating as Beijing close ties with Russia come under scrutiny, with potential retaliatory actions against European firms and reliance on cybersecurity laws suggested.

www.wionews.com

 

[WyattEarp]

International relations are quite complicated and messy.

The European Union wants the U.S. to supply more arms to Ukraine to fight Russia.
The U.S. borrows money from China which indirectly helps fund the weapons.
China helps support Russia.

 

[anon1]

 

[oil&gas]

International relations are quite complicated and messy.

The European Union wants the U.S. to supply more arms to Ukraine to fight Russia.
The U.S. borrows money from China which indirectly helps fund the weapons.
China helps support Russia.

Trump is not a smart man by any measure. He nonetheless has the
common sense to have figured out the U.S. could supply arms to Ukraine
at Europe's expense.

So long as the war remains regional there is little for the world
outside EU and Ukraine to worry about. The rest of the world including
the U.S. under Trump won't want to be a part the Ukraine war if EU
and the UK are happy to foot the bill and continue to be the ones giving
moral support to Zelensky. China and India actually benefit from the war.
The world should remain safe if the war terminates at the point of
the fall of Kyiv which could be another year away.

Trump has failed big time for not being able to end the war in
24 hrs. He can still do the world a favor by putting a lid on escalation
of the war to outside Ukraine.

View attachment 463903

 

[oil&gas]

NATO’s Proxy War against Russia Becomes Increasingly Reckless

Ted Galen Carpenter
Jul 22, 2025

The strategy that the United States and its European allies have adopted to use Ukraine as their military proxy in a war to weaken Russia has always involved a sizable element of risk. At some point, Russian leaders might no longer be content with just attacking the puppet that NATO members were using to torment their country. Instead, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his colleagues could decide to attack one or more of the puppeteers. The chances of such an escalation are increasing. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s principal deputy, issued a warning on July 17 that his country might launch “preemptive strikes” if the Western powers continued to boost their support for Ukraine’s military efforts.


Medvedev’s statement occurred just after President Donald Trump executed a major U.S. policy reversal regarding Ukraine. Instead of phasing out military aid to Kyiv, the administration announced a resumption of weapons shipments, including Patriot air defense missiles that other NATO members would purchase from the United States. Such a stance was reminiscent of President Joe Biden’s enthusiastic support for Ukraine’s war effort, and it stood in stark contrast to Trump’s rhetoric throughout the 2024 presidential election campaign and the initial weeks of his second term that indicated a determination to end Washington’s entanglement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.


Unfortunately, the new sale of Patriots is just the latest in a long series of provocations that the United States and NATO have conducted against Russia since full-scale fighting between Moscow and Kyiv began in February 2022. Both Medvedev and Putin have contended previously that NATO is already at war with their country, given the extent of military assistance that Alliance members have extended to Kyiv—especially the provision of long-range missiles. Medvedev specifically raised the prospect of Russian retaliatory strikes on NATO bases.


Their charge has merit. Not only have the NATO members collectively provided a tsunami of weapons to their military proxy, but also several of them have assisted Ukraine’s war effort in other crucial ways. There is credible evidence that both British and U.S. intelligence agencies (and possibly those of other NATO countries) have provided crucial data to Ukrainian forces attacking Russian military transport planes and other targets. A similar form of assistance apparently was given to Ukrainian forces that attacked Russian naval vessels in the Black Sea.


Providing such assistance to one party in an ongoing war could quite reasonably be interpreted as an act of war against the opposing party. Yet several Alliance members are incurring such risks. A German general justified his country’s decision to send long-range missiles to Ukraine. But as one critic noted, what the general conveniently left out “is that these weapons will be operated by German personnel from Wiesbaden. In other words, Germany is turning one of its own cities into a legitimate target for Russian retaliation.”


Although the evidence of committing an act of war is less definitive in other cases, there were strong indications that one or more NATO member states were involved in the destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline. The accounts that U.S. and European media propaganda campaigns circulated certainly lacked even minimal credibility. The original cover story that Russia (for reasons that remained both vague and implausible) destroyed its own multi-billion-dollar pipeline did not even pass the proverbial laugh test. Even U.S. and other NATO officials quickly backed away from that attempted explanation. However, the substitute version was even more preposterous. That iteration asserted that a band of Ukrainian activists (but activists who had absolutely no connection to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government) conducted the sabotage raid using a civilian yacht manned by divers not in the country’s military.


Since those attempts at a plausible cover story flopped, NATO officials and their pet media outlets have gone strangely silent. Hopes by the transatlantic foreign policy “blob” that the pipeline story will just go away are understandable, since Moscow would have grounds for regarding the attack on its pipeline as a brazen act of war.


More recently, murkiness surrounds Ukraine’s bold move deploying swarms of drones to attack Russia’s strategic bomber fleet stationed at four air bases deep inside Russia. Kyiv understandably bragged about such a military and propaganda victory. However, Washington’s possible role in this episode remains a matter of conjecture. Media outlets friendly to Ukraine asserted that the United States knew about the operation and expressed no objection. The White House initially contended that Ukraine had given no advance notice, but the U.S. account has become less clear with the passage of time.


It is an important detail. It seems unlikely that without intelligence information similar to that given to Kyiv in its earlier assaults against Russian troop transports and warships, Ukrainian forces could have carried out such a complex operation so deep inside Russian territory. The probable conclusion is that Kyiv likely was aided by either U.S. intelligence operatives or operatives from another NATO. In either case, it would be yet another act of war committed against the Russian Federation. One can readily imagine the reaction from the United States if Russia (or any other adversary) waged an attack on the U.S. strategic bomber fleet and destroyed a significant portion of the fleet.


Even in the unlikely event that Ukraine acted totally alone, that scenario would mean that NATO’s proxy had gone rogue and is now acting on its own. In mid-July, President Trump raised tensions with the Kremlin even more. With typical Trumpian verbal incontinence, he asked Zelensky if (apparently in light of the successful raid on the bomber bases), Ukraine could strike a target such as Moscow deep inside Russia. It appeared to be an unsubtle hint that the United States would not be displeased by such a move. Trump did say many hours later that he was not calling on Ukraine to attack Moscow, but that poisonous idea was now firmly planted. On July 20, Ukraine launched a drone assault on Moscow.


The United States and its NATO allies are engaging in irresponsible behavior that could turn the already dangerous Ukraine proxy war against Russia into a direct armed conflict between the Alliance and Russia. Even during the worst days of the Cold War, Soviet and U.S. leaders had the good sense to implicitly keep their respective homelands off limits. The current crop of “leaders” on the Western side are not exercising such wisdom or basic prudence. They are playing the international equivalent of Russian roulette.

NATO’s Proxy War against Russia Becomes Increasingly Reckless - Antiwar.com

The strategy that the United States and its European allies have adopted to use Ukraine as their military proxy in a war to weaken Russia has always involved a sizable element of risk. At some point, Russian leaders might no longer be content with just attacking the puppet that NATO…

original.antiwar.com

 

[WyattEarp]

Trump has failed big time for not being able to end the war in
24 hrs. He can still do the world a favor by putting a lid on escalation
of the war to outside Ukraine.

Yeah, I thought the war would have come to an end within a few days after inauguration. That's why a lot of us voted for him.

The reality is the war will become increasingly an economic war between the West and Russia. That has its own risks and dangers. China seems to being held to the sanctions. Good luck with that. No country likes to be forced to do anything. Autocratic countries especially like to encourage havoc in the world and extract advantages.

 

[Frankfooter]

Yeah, I thought the war would have come to an end shortly in January. That's why a lot of us voted for him.

The reality is the war will become increasingly an economic war between the West and Russia. That has its own risks and dangers. China seems to being held to the sanctions. Good luck with that. No country likes to be forced to do anything. Autocratic countries especially like to encourage havoc in the world and extract advantages.

Instead, trump has made the Russian war with Ukraine worse, escalated the genocide in Palestine, bombed Yemen, Syria and Somalia and started a war with Iran that he chickened out of.

What else would you expect when you voted for a convicted felon and fraud artist?
You think he'd do what he said he'd do?

 

[Valcazar]

Yeah, I thought the war would have come to an end within a few days after inauguration. That's why a lot of us voted for him.

Which was always strange since Trump didn't have nearly enough leverage over Ukraine to make them accept Russia's terms unconditionally and didn't have nearly enough clout with Putin to convince Putin to make smaller demands.

The reality is the war will become increasingly an economic war between the West and Russia. That has its own risks and dangers. China seems to being held to the sanctions. Good luck with that. No country likes to be forced to do anything. Autocratic countries especially like to encourage havoc in the world and extract advantages.

Which was another reason not to think Trump would end the war.